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The Year That Musicians Died

We look at how the first half of 2022 has been an especially grim period for Indian music, with artists across the spectrum passing away one after the other

Jun 13, 2022

(Clockwise from top left) Lata Mangeshkar, KK, Shivkumar Sharma, MC Tod Fod, Sidhu Moose Wala and Bappi Lahiri are just some of the Indian musicians who have died this year. Photos: Wikipedia

A tribute gig held for Dharmesh Parmar aka MC Tod Fod in Mumbai last weekend gave us the chance to raise a pertinent question – what the hell is up with 2022? Parmar was one of the leading lights of hip-hop crew Swadesi, before his life was snuffed out abruptly in March this year due to a heart ailment. He was only 24. That really is no age to die. And yet, his contemporaries in the country’s rap circuit are left to fill the gaping void that his death has created, hoping to find it in themselves to accept the loss of such a talented artist at such a young age. It wasn’t meant to happen. But then again, nor was the heart attack that Indi-pop icon KK suffered recently after a concert in Kolkata, aged 53. Punjabi sensation Sidhu Moose Wala wasn’t supposed to have his 28-year-old body riddled with bullets either. And New-Delhi based multi-instrumentalist Sheil Sagar was only 22 when he passed away earlier this month.

So, seriously, what the hell is up with 2022?

We get news reports of musicians dying every year. There’s nothing abnormal about it. But never in recent history has there been such an avalanche of Indian artists collectively leaving for the great gig in the sky, as there has been in the first half of 2022. And they cover such a broad spectrum that it seems even more tragic when you think about it – if on one hand you have Sagar, a 22-year-old who was still relatively undiscovered when he breathed his last, on the other hand you have Lata Mangeshkar, whose legacy would be insulted if we were to give you her introduction. Bappi Lahiri needs no introduction either. These were people who, over the years, had ingrained themselves into the national consciousness to such an extent that their passing away feels like a personal loss – everyone is likely to have identified with a Lata tai or Bappi da song at some point or the other. Shivkumar Sharma might have commanded a more niche audience. But the santoor maestro, too, was a national treasure, as were vocalist Sandhya Mukhopadhyay and lyricist Maya Govind. All of them passed away one after the other, almost as if in the blink of an eye. Even before we could truly start mourning the loss of one artist, we were compelled to shed tears for another.

It makes one think not only of mortality in general, but also of the unique relationship that musicians share with their audiences. They embody an art form that ignites the inner recesses of our consciousness, helping us process our feelings better, allowing us to make sense of unaddressed existential questions. You can argue that it’s the same with any other art form, like literature. But music, like cinema, has more mass appeal. It talks to the rich and poor, literate and illiterate alike, and in doing so, it breaks down societal barriers in the form of manmade divisions. It wasn’t just son-of-the-soil Punjabis who propelled Moose Wala to stardom. It wasn’t just the average Mumbai tapori who idolized Bappi Lahiri. Their fandom cut across class and geographical boundaries, making this country more unified despite all the disparities we embody as Indians. And that’s why we owe these artists a huge debt of gratitude – the loss isn’t just personal, it affects the entire fabric of the nation. Think about it: when KK performed his last gig in Kolkata, the whole audience at the venue was singing along to his tracks. The same would have happened had that concert taken place elsewhere in the country in, say, Delhi, Bengaluru or Mumbai.

That was the sort of hold that these artists had on us, to varying degrees. The irony is that 2022 was meant to be a year of revival, a year when musicians were literally on song again after the devastation that the pandemic created. Instead, it looks like we are returning to square one, what with Covid cases on the rise again. And even if the current scare does turn out to be a false alarm, we’ll still have to deal with the losses we’ve already faced. Lata Mangeshkar is no more. Sidhu Moose Wala is no more. Bappi Lahiri is no more. Shiv Kumar Sharma is no more. KK is no more. We can carry on with the other names mentioned in this article. But we’ll spare you the grim repetition.

Instead, we’ll leave you with the hope that if the first half of 2022 has been about the glass being half-emptied, the next half – inshallah – will at least see it remain at the same level.

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